


Shaken

by jujus_writing_corner



Series: Whumptober 2020 [4]
Category: Real Person Fiction, Youtube RPF
Genre: Blood, Blood and Injury, Budding Found Family, Earthquakes, Gen, Implied Death, Rescue, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:42:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26819737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujus_writing_corner/pseuds/jujus_writing_corner
Summary: An earthquake strikes while Ed and Eric are out in the city together, one that destroys half the building they're in and separates them. Ed is determined to find Eric and rescue him, and equally determined to ignore the paternal emotions that Eric makes him feel.Whumptober 2020 Day 4: Running Out of TimePrompt: Collapsed Building
Series: Whumptober 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947961
Comments: 8
Kudos: 14
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Shaken

**Author's Note:**

> Ed be catching feelings, but like, platonically XD Too bad the earthquake had to harsh his vibe ;w;
> 
> Enjoy!

Ed and Eric don’t go out together much. Neither of them do a whole lot outside Ego Inc. – at least, not much that needs company. But Ed decides to invite Eric along with him for a trip to his favorite barbeque place for lunch, and Eric happily obliges. It goes great; Ed hasn’t seen Eric laugh that much in ages, and even the pauses in conversation aren’t awkward. Eric seems so comfortable with him, so happy, and it warms Ed’s heart to see it. Afterwards, they stop at a multi-floor department store on their way back home. Not to buy anything, just to browse and extend their outing a little longer. On the second floor, Ed looks through clothes not far from where Eric’s doing the same, and thinks about the day.

Truthfully, Ed isn’t really sure what to make of his relationship with Eric. To call him a friend feels too casual, though they certainly hang out like friends. But even their time spent together is different. Ed’s seen Eric with his other friends – he has plenty of them in Ego Inc. The way he and Eric act has a different timbre than the way Eric and Oliver act, or Eric and Bim, or even Eric and King, or Eric and Silver. Maybe because Ed is older, maybe because Ed was the first to start breaking down Eric’s walls, maybe because Ed understood him better from the jump.

But if Ed were being fully honest with himself, he’d have to admit that he already knows the word he wants to use for how he feels about Eric. But it feels too soon to say. It feels too early, too wrong.

From across a clothing rack, Eric catches Ed’s eye. Ed looks back, though he can only see Eric’s eyes above the rack. But he can see them crinkle as Eric smiles. Ed smiles too, though he wonders if Eric can see, given his sunglasses.

It’s in that quiet moment that the ground starts to lurch.

Eric’s eyes go wide with alarm, and cries of surprise and panic begin to echo from throughout the store.

“Earthquake!!” someone screams.

Ed whips around, looking for somewhere to hunker down. The clothing rack they’re near is too dangerous, it could fall on them at any second. He spies a small table with folded shirts sitting on it. It’ll have to do.

“Eric, get under the table!” Ed yells, before diving for it himself.

“I – I’m –” Eric gasps, paralyzed with fear, wobbling as the building keeps shaking. Bits of plaster and dust start falling from the ceiling, the lights flicker, and the floor ripples.

“Move, boy!!” Ed shouts, getting more worried for Eric by the second.

Eric finally moves to run, to dive under the table like Ed has, but the room splits in two before he can. Ed’s half of the building lurches up, and Eric’s half starts to crumble, and more chunks of ceiling fall down, and Eric screams, and Ed screams, and the power cuts out, and the building groans, and a cloud of dust blankets the room. Ed can do nothing but cling to the table leg and shut his eyes, waiting for it to be over.

Moments later that feel like minutes, the room finally stops swaying. The rumble stops, and Eric can hear people start murmuring, crying, asking what happened and who’s hurt. Ed opens his eyes to a gaping maw of a building. There’s no floor where the other half of the room was, only crumbling ceiling and holes in the wall letting in sunlight.

There’s no floor where Eric was standing moments ago.

“Fuck, Eric,” Ed gasps, heart clenching in fear.

Eric must be somewhere below on the first floor, probably hurt, probably terrified, probably already crushed under rubble–

_“Pull it together,”_ Ed tells himself, _“You have to find him.”_

He gets out from under the table and stands, and his legs are unexpectedly shaky. He wobbles along, taking care to stay away from the edge of the floor, going to where the stairwell should be. He can only hope it’s still standing. He passes by people covered in dust, some bleeding, some crushed under chunks of ceiling or heavy toppled shelves. There’s a child crying somewhere, and Ed can’t help but look towards the sound. He sees a little boy, unhurt but clearly shaken, being comforted by his mother. Both are gray from dust, but both seem okay, and the mother is holding the little boy and rocking him gently, trying to soothe. Ed turns away with effort and continues towards the stairwell.

To his relief, he finds the stairwell mostly intact. He traverses down, only stopping to take cover when an aftershock makes what’s left of the building shake. Partway down, he’s forced to clamber over a chunk of ceiling that’s blocked the way. His leg catches and scrapes on a rebar pipe sticking out of the chunk, and he cries out as he tumbles down.

“Dang nabbit,” Ed hisses as he sits up, examining his injured leg. There’s a jagged gash down the front of his lower leg, and blood is seeping down his leg and into and around his boots.

As he’s sitting and trying to get his breath back against the pain, he hears another person start climbing over the chunk of ceiling on the stair, huffing and puffing with effort. Ed manages to scoot out of the way before another man, heavier set than Ed and a good bit shorter, scrambles over the chunk and lands on the ground with an “oof.” Fortunately, he managed to avoid the rebar.

“Jesus,” the man says. His voice is a little high-pitched, a little reedy, though it could just be from stress.

“Yer tellin’ me,” Ed grumbles. His leg is still throbbing sharply, and Ed is beginning to realize that no amount of sitting and waiting will make it hurt any less. He can’t waste anymore time, not when Eric needs him. He starts to stand with a grunt.

“Shit, man, hold on!” cries the other man, getting to his feet as well, “Your leg’s busted, and you’re bleeding everywhere! Maybe I can help, make a tourniquet or something–”

“I ain’t got time for that,” Ed huffs, limping away down the stairs, holding the warped railing for support, “My boy fell to the ground floor, I gotta find him!”

“Alright, alright,” placates the other man, “At least lemme help you before you fall down the stairs.”

Ed allows the man to come beside him and support him with an arm on his waist. As they traverse down the stairs, they begin to hear sirens blaring in the distance.

“That was a terrible quake,” the man sighs, “I wonder how many other buildings look like this one?”

Ed sighs too, but can’t answer. He briefly wonders if Ego Inc. was damaged at all, but he can’t take his phone out to text King or Silver and walk at the same time. Besides, there’s probably too many power lines knocked down for his phone to be of any use.

There’s more obstacles on the way down the stairs in the form of gaps, or sections of stairs warped so badly they can’t be traversed like normal. Ed has to admit he’s grateful for the other man helping him through; he probably would’ve fallen by now if not for him.

“What’s yer name, anyway?” Ed asks him, “Realized I never asked.”

“Oh, it’s Bruce,” the man says, “Wasn’t thinking about it, to be honest. You?”

“Ed. Did you…come here with anyone?”

“Nah, was just grabbing some things for the wife.” Bruce’s face screws up with worry. “She’s seven months pregnant, you see. She started on bedrest a bit ago, this pregnancy’s been so rough…I hope she’s not watching the news.”

“Sorry about all that,” Ed murmurs. He can’t help but think of when he had a wife and a kid, and about how his greed ruined it all.

“No one’s fault,” Bruce replies, but he seems grateful for the acknowledgement.

It’s not much longer before they finally reach the end of the stairs. The door leading out of the stairwell barely exists anymore, and the frame is warped wide. It’s easy for the pair to walk through onto the ground floor. The sun immediately becomes brighter, so bright that Ed momentarily shields his eyes and Bruce sneezes. Here, half the walls are knocked away, collapsed in rubble. If Ed thought the second floor was a disaster area, the first floor is carnage. The air is thick with dust, rubble and pieces of ceiling cover everything, and people are yelling and crying. The sirens are louder as help starts to arrive, but it’s clearly too late for some.

Ed only hopes it’s not too late for Eric.

“Thanks for the help,” Ed tells Bruce, breaking away from him.

“Man, you’re really going in there?” Bruce sighs, “It’s still dangerous, shit could still fall on you, or you could step on glass or something and maim your other leg.”

“I told you, I gotta find my boy,” Ed says, trying not to sound too desperate.

“Ah, alright,” Bruce says, in a tone that suggests he doubts there’s a boy left to find, “I’ll head out of here, try to gather with others who’ve left. Join us if you get the inclination.”

Ed nods, and leaves Bruce to search for Eric.

He wanders through the ruined store, searching under every piece of rubble. He finds other people, finds purses and shopping bags, finds bloodied limbs, but no sign of Eric. He starts asking the still-living people for help.

“You seen my boy?” he asks, “Young man, tall, glasses, prosthetic legs?”

Some are too disturbed and upset by the earthquake to answer him, and those that aren’t have nothing but sympathy to give. Ed begins to fear that Eric truly is lost, that he’s been so badly crushed he can’t be recovered, that there’s nothing left of him _to_ recover, that he’s–

A thin, wheezing cough sounds from a distance up ahead. It’s far from the first cough Ed’s heard since he started looking, but this one sounds different. This one sounds familiar.

He looks ahead, and there’s Eric, lying on his back, pinned by rubble crushing his legs. Blood pools under him, but he’s moving, he’s alive.

“Eric!!” Ed cries, rushing to him as fast as his injured leg will let him. He nearly trips over the bits of concrete scattered across the ground, but quickly gets to Eric’s side. Eric blinks up at him through irreparably cracked glasses. His face and hair are covered in dust, and there’s a long scrape on his temple caked in dried blood, and smaller cuts and little bruises on his face and all over his arms.

“Dad?” Eric mumbles weakly.

Ed’s heart shoots all the way up into his throat, for a hundred reasons.

“Y-You’re delirious, kid,” Ed stammers, lifting Eric’s head and back off the ground to hold him as best he can. “It’s just Ed.”

Eric whimpers and hugs Ed back with shaking arms.

“Hurts,” he gasps, “A-And my pros–, my prosthetics...”

“Now ain’t the time to worry about your prosthetics, ya hear?” Ed tells him, stroking his hair, “They ain’t important right now. You focus on staying awake with me.”

“I wanna go home,” Eric whimpers, before beginning to sob.

“Hey, shh, you’ll be alright,” Ed murmurs, hugging him tighter, “I’ve got you, Eric, I’m here.”

“Oh my god, Ed!?” cries a new voice not far away. New, but familiar. Ed’s head shoots up to see Silver running towards him and Eric.

“You sure are a sight for sore eyes,” Ed says, unable to keep a relieved smile off his face.

“There’s other buildings that got damaged, but this one pulled at me the most,” Silver says, kneeling down next to Ed, “Maybe this is why. Oh, Eric, you hanging in there?”

“Hurts,” Eric sobs.

“I know, I know,” Silver murmurs, “I’ll get you out of here and we’ll go home to the clinic, and Dr. Iplier will take care of you.” Silver stands again and walks around to the rubble on Eric’s legs. “I don’t think removing this will make your injuries worse, but it’ll still hurt. I’ll try to be quick, but brace yourself, okay, Eric?”

Eric nods shakily, and Ed squeezes him gently, trying to reassure.

As Silver starts to pull away the rubble, Eric screams in pain. Ed holds him as tight as he can, whispers to him, and Eric clings to his shirt with a white-knuckled grip.

“It hurts, it hurts!!” he wails.

“I know, kid, I know,” Ed murmurs, “Just a little longer, we’ll be home soon.”

And they are. Time passes in a blur as Silver frees Eric’s legs (Ed would rather not think about how they looked) and gets him and Ed somewhere secluded for Wilford to spirit them away back to Ego Inc.’s clinic. Once there, Dr. Iplier takes Eric into surgery for his crushed legs and Ed gets his own leg stitched up by Plus. It kills Ed to be apart from Eric, but he trusts Dr. Iplier to fix him. Before Ed knows it, Dr. Iplier is explaining Eric’s injuries to him.

“If he wasn’t already a double amputee, he sure would’ve been after this,” Dr. Iplier tells him, “It’s probably somewhat fortunate that he had less leg to lose, because it meant less trauma. I did have to remove parts of his legs, but since he’s a figment, they’ll eventually come back. And he’ll be alright. He’ll have to stay in the clinic for a while and get new prosthetics, but he’s going to be fine.”

“Thank god,” Ed sighs. The adrenaline from the day’s events has worn off, leaving him aching and drained.

“You can go see him,” Dr. Iplier says, smiling gently, “I’m sure you want to, and I bet he’ll want to see you, too when he wakes up.”

“Thanks, Doc,” Ed says, getting up, leaning on the crutch Plus gave him.

“Hey, it’s my job,” Dr. Iplier replies, though he doesn’t stop smiling.

Eric is still asleep when Ed walks into his room. He’s no longer covered in dust, the scrape on his temple and all his other cuts have been cleaned and bandaged, and his expression is relaxed and peaceful. His spare pair of glasses, probably found by Plus, sits on the table beside his bed. His old glasses have probably been tossed, leaving Eric without. He looks even younger without them, even more vulnerable. Ed hobbles to the bed and sits in the chair left beside it, probably by Doc.

“Told you we’d be alright,” Ed murmurs, beginning to stroke his hair. “Can’t remember the last time I was so worried. And you…” He sighs. “You have any idea how much of a heart attack you gave me when you called me ‘Dad’? I know you must not’ve been in your right mind, but…”

_“Can you blame him?”_ asks a voice in the back of Ed’s mind. _“You kept calling him your boy to everyone, didn’t you?”_

Ed doesn’t have an answer to that. He can only silently continue stroking Eric’s hair, silently being grateful that hi–… that Eric is alive.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this, please leave a comment! They absolutely make my day :'3


End file.
